Villages

An interior designer turned social worker, Lora Tucker is studying for a master's degree in creative writing at Stony Brook Southampton. Now, the Sag Harbor writer has landed a new job as the poetry editor of African Voices magazine.   

The Hamptons Realty Group, a fixture on Main Street in Amagansett since 1984, rolled up its signature red awning and vacated the space it has long occupied this week. The firm is still very much alive and prospering, said its owner Htun Han, but the pandemic has changed the way it is doing business.

The call came in that a dog lost at sea needed rescuing. He was 300 yards out between Egypt and Wiborg's Beaches in East Hampton and it looked like he was going to go under.

The homeowners selected from among more than 30 applicants across the county will be Anthony LaFountain and Cheyenne Banville, volunteer first responders with the Springs Fire Department. Mr. LaFountain and Ms. Banville live in Springs and work in East Hampton.

Rachel Blatt and Jordan Werbe Fuentes were married at East Hampton Town Justice Court on Friday. Justice Steven Tekulsky officiated.

After having wrapped up 20 years of service on the East Hampton Village Board, and following an unsuccessful run for mayor in last week's election, Barbara Borsack, who was the first woman to be elected to the board, said she is now deciding how best to apportion a sudden surplus of free time.

In his first week in office, Jerry Larsen, who ran on a platform to bring change to the village and won in a landslide in the Sept. 15 election, discussed his new proposals for parking, the renovation of Herrick Park, sidewalk repair, police reform, and more.

Anita Boyer and Joe Pallister had June marked on their calendar for nearly a year. Both of them mused on an intimate wedding at what they considered the most idyllic venue: Disney World.

"I am so obsessed with Disney," Ms. Boyer, a dance and acting coach, and co-founder of Our Fabulous Variety Show, said in a phone interview. "Both of my grandparents worked there. I grew up visiting all the time. I have Disney in my blood."

Following the Sept. 15 elections for mayor and two seats on the East Hampton Village Board, Mayor Jerry Larsen and his NewTown Party running mates Chris Minardi and Sandra Melendez, the newly-elected trustees, were sworn in at the village board meeting on Friday.

East End Ocean Rescue, which focuses on warning the public of the dangers of rip currents, recently donated 1,000 rip current cards, along with a warning sign, to the Ocean Vista resort on Napeague, which is near a stretch of beach where a Brooklyn man drowned earlier this summer.

Dustin Reynolds has traversed much of the world alone in his 1983 Bristol 35.5c sailboat and arrived in Montauk for the first time on Friday. To say he has made the journey single-handedly is at once literal and figurative. Mr. Reynolds lost his left arm and his left foot in a 2008 motorcycle accident, caused by a drunken driver, that nearly claimed his life.

In another year, the lawn of the Lamb Building in Amagansett would have been filled with East Hampton Town residents enjoying free clams on the half shell and clam chowder on Sunday, courtesy of the town trustees. But though the 30th Largest Clam Contest could not happen in its typical form this year, the trustees found a creative solution for the annual celebration of the town's maritime heritage and informal seminar on that body's role in town government.

The Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton and Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor will live-stream Yom Kippur services on Sunday evening and Monday, the Conservative Synagogue of the Hamptons, based in Bridgehampton, will hold its services via Zoom, services at Chabad of the Hamptons in East Hampton will be held outdoors in a spacious tent, and Chabad of North Haven will hold its services outside and in.

East Enders gathered this weekend to remember and celebrate Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the trailblazing United States Supreme Court Justice and feminist icon, who died on Friday of metastatic pancreatic cancer at the age of 87.

A recent round of water quality testing in Montauk shows that harmful algal blooms in Fort Pond and Big Reed Pond are dissipating while many other water bodies in Montauk, East Hampton, Springs, and Amagansett have low bacteria counts.

A restoration and preservation project taking place at Third House at Montauk County Park got a financial boost this week from the Suffolk County Legislature, which approved $500,000 in bond money to help usher the project to completion.

The East Hampton Housing Authority held a lottery on Friday to help determine who will be the first residents of a 37-unit affordable housing complex under construction at 531 Montauk Highway in Amagansett. There were 543 applicants.

Making his first bid for elective office in East Hampton Village, Jerry Larsen, the village's former police chief, was the high vote-getter in the three-person race for mayor on Tuesday, winning in a landslide against Barbara Borsack, the deputy mayor, who has been a member of the village board since 2000, and Arthur Graham, a trustee since 2017. 

As the humid heat of summer finally starts to give way to crisp autumn mornings, the health care community in general starts to think ahead to the coming winter months when respiratory viruses begin to run amok. 

The Peconic Land Trust has acquired a 1.4-acre commercially developed property on Georgica Pond in Wainscott and plans to restore it to its natural state.

“Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence,” a one-day exhibition to mark the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, will be at the East Hampton Historical Society’s Clinton Academy museum on Saturday.

What happened when Covid turned summer frosty? What did people do instead? The pandemic kept many people apart, but it also brought some back together. Some pulled up stakes, some finally put down new roots, and some found the resolve to tackle the next stage of life.

The East Hampton Town Trustees will hold their 30th annual Largest Clam Contest on Sunday, a scaled-back, virtual event in light of the coronavirus pandemic. 

With hours to go before the polls close, Jerry Larsen, a candidate for East Hampton Village mayor in Tuesday's election, has signaled that he intends to contest the results of the election and ask that all ballots, voting machines, and objections to ballots be impounded.

"It was too nice of a day, and too good of a band," Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy said of the WLNG-sponsored event on Saturday that was to feature sets by the HooDoo Loungers and Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks. At one point Sag Harbor police counted 175 people in attendance, more than triple the number allowed at outdoor gatherings under an executive order issued by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

The village plans to develop an affordable housing program that will be overseen by East Hampton Housing Authority, the village board announced at a meeting last Thursday.

Padma Borrego and her son, Mateo, started a new life in California in 2018 after leaving the East End, where Ms. Borrego had been a yoga teacher and bodywork practitioner and Mateo was a student at the Hayground School. Just as they were getting on their feet in a new home, life threw a wrench in their plans in the form of a raging wildfire that claimed their home and their possessions.

"We're okay. It's up and down," Ms. Borrego said in an interview last week. "It's challenging. We're safe; we have good friends. But it's definitely intense."

This has been a summer of consternation and intense debate for Jewish communities worldwide. How to bring people together for the High Holy Days, which begin on the evening of Friday, Sept. 18, while keeping them safely apart in the midst of a pandemic? On the South Fork, with a single exception, the answer, in the main, was Zoom.

After discovering their employees had tested positive for Covid-19, a handful of restaurants in Montauk temporarily closed up shop late last month and early this month to deep clean and retest employees before reopening for business.

I hope that if any of you know anyone who may be struggling with addiction during the pandemic, you might find a quiet moment to offer encouragement, to ask if there's anything you can do to help. Sometimes that's all it takes to get someone headed in the right direction.